“Here in North Carolina’s third-largest city, officers pulled over African-American drivers for traffic violations at a rate far out of proportion with their share of the local driving population. They used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars more than twice as often as white motorists — even though they found drugs and weapons significantly more often when the driver was white. Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason. And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.”

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The strength it takes to survive and thrive while black can almost seem superhuman

President Barack Obama speaks while participating in a roundtable discussion on the impacts of climate change on public health with Vivek Murthy, U.S. surgeon general, left, Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), second from right, and Charlotte Wallace, sustainability coordinator at Anne Arundel Medical Center, third from right, at Howard University

There is no pleading ignorance about nooses. When you use a noose against a Black person, everyone knows what you mean. Everyone one knows the threat, violence, and racism it represents. Everyone knows that you are terrorizing Black people

No one knows who shot those cops, all we have is speculation and attempts to deflect blame from the epidemic of cops killing unarmed Black males. The “tension” between cops and minority communities is a decades old problem (police as occupying force instead of public servants). The recent spike in police killings of unarmed Black males is a symptom of the larger issue of White racial anxiety which is reaching dangerous levels. The cop in Atlanta who murdered the unarmed, naked veteran who had mental problems should open up a lot of eyes to what is going on, i.e., Black lives don’t matter to these folks. Being Black is becoming a capital offense in this country. How the response to an obviously mental ill naked man is to use deadly force (not a baton, not a taser, not calling for backup) tells me that they are looking for an excuse to murder Black people (more restrain is shown toward a fucking alligator walking through a golf course than a Black man walking down the street). By the “logic” displayed by the Atlanta cop, the proper police response to a Black man threatening to jump from a rooftop would be to call in the snipers to shoot the man. There will never be any semblance of “equality” in this country until a Black life is deemed by society to be of equal value to a White life. This has never been the case in this country and it most certainly is not the case today. All of this racial shit stems from the mental gymnastics that the institution of slavery required of a White society that had/has an almost pathological need to see itself as “good people” no matter what horrible shit they did. You cannot enslave folks you view as your equals. You cannot enslave a race of people you view as human and still see yourself as “good person”. Instead, to maintain a positive self image, the slaveholder has to convince both himself (and the slave) that the slave is “inferior” and DESERVES the horrible treatment he/she is forced to endure. That the slave is not HUMAN. This inability to see Black people as fellow human beings, the inability to understand the grief of a Black parent mourning for a child needlessly killed by the police is the same strain of racist/White supremacy that allowed for the enslavement of Black people in the “land of the free”.

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I was startled to learn this week that rap music causes racism. I had no idea so many grandparents were into hip-hop.

So sad that they have to respond. (Same with Travyon Martin’s parents). Their son was horrifically murdered. There shouldn’t be a burden placed on them to respond to anything. Unfortunately, we all know why they have to

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Session One on “Investing in Africa’s Future,” at the U.S. Department of State (More here)

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President Barack Obama greets Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza

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President Barack Obama shares a laugh with Ambassador Susan Rice, the President’s National Security Advisor, during a lunch he hosted for over 50 African leaders and their delegations at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit